1. Oh, how I wish my uncle on the day he parted us
Was made to drink poison mixed with the wine of Yemen.

2. My uncle's plotting came between me and her
And he fretted at the pain of our separation.

3. Oh, how I wish we both had died together and that
When we died, we were in one gravecloth enshrouded.

4. Oh, how I wish through time without misfortune
We two were camels grazing the barren land in friendship,

5. While the herdsmen drive us from each water-spring,
Crying, "Be off, O mangy and scabby pair!"

6. When we are fearful they will part us,
The turns of time bring us again together.

7. By God, I spoke your secret to no friend,
No brother to me, nor has my mouth betrayed it,

8. Save only that I said one day to my companion
When dawn had come and our camel-litter rocked us,

9. "In the early morning, as the zephyrs touched us
With breezes weak, how they made our curtains flutter!"

10. I bore the gasps of early dawn and so could stand them,
But not the rattling wheezes of the night have I withstood.

11. Oh uncle, since you were not made to drink by one
Related, for you the feet have slipped.

12. Yet you - though it did not profit you - parted us,
While we together, our clan is all allied.

13. You made me hope for Afara till I longed for her,
And what you made me hope for was the talk of every camp.

14. A pampered woman, untouched by youth,
Whose breasts had never suckled babes before my own;

15. You'd see two calves, sixty-six fully grown,
Terrified of her legs that they would break them.

16. By God, were it not for love of Afara, never would
I have met you under the arches of your noble house.